Miles Davis-Miles in Paris (1990)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1990
Running Time	78:04
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Frank Cassenti
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Miles Davis Benjamin Rietveld Joseph "Foley" McCreary Ricky Wellman John Bigham Kenny Garrett Kei Akagi
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Various

    This DVD presentation appears to be selected portions of a performance in Paris as part of the 10th Paris Jazz Festival in 1989, and recorded for French television. In addition to the performances, there are snippets of an interview with Miles, usually inserted between tracks, but annoyingly, there are a couple of bits that are overlaid on top of some of the music.

    All of these tracks come from the later period of his career, namely from about 1982 onwards. Throughout much of this time, he was accompanied by most of the musicians that appear with him in this programme, and all of them, as is to be expected are fantastic. Special praise must go to alto sax player Kenny Garrett: at times, I felt that he even went so far as to outshine the great man himself. All of the musicians, though, seemed to be in great form, and I enjoyed the music, even though Miles' 80s song selection isn't really my cup of caffeine infused hot beverage.

    This DVD probably isn't the best way for someone curious to discover Miles Davis: you're better off picking up a copy of Birth of the Cool or Kind Of Blue, which are probably "Nice Price" CDs, or equivalent. Fans may well enjoy it, though, especially if already familiar with the great man's 80s stuff.

Video

    The first thing that struck me was that it was quite a soft image, lacking in definition and detail. Grain was a constant problem throughout, but this is probably more a problem with videotape in low light than the transfer per se. At some points (mainly from the camera point of view from behind the band), there was a diagonal banding across the whole screen which looked to me like "organized" grain. The instances of this effect were very regular: I first noticed it at 3:25 and lastly at 64:41: to list all of the occurrences in between would have me going for pages. Shadow detail wasn't too bad, bearing in mind the stark nature of the lighting. Somewhat surprisingly, I don't specifically recall any instances of low-level noise.

    Another big problem resulting from the video source was the representation of colour. With cool blue stage lights accenting the effect, the colour palette was pale and undersaturated, with the exception of reds caught in white light, which were oversaturated. There were numerous instances of colour bleed (see Miles' red polka dot shirt) as well as cross-colouration (the edges of the cymbals), chroma noise (see the large red background), and dot crawl (see 48:35 to 49:05). Again, to list all of these instances would have me going forever.

    Pixelization and posterization were regular occurrences, as were macro blocking type effects. There were many instances of aliasing: along the straight edges of the stage, every shot featuring keyboards, and even on Miles' glasses during the interview scenes. I didn't detect any traditional film artefacts, but there appeared to be a couple of glitches that I struggled to identify and would find even more difficult to explain at 35:27.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue during the interview scenes, was, as you could imagine clear and easy to understand. Miles Davis, though, was in desperate need of a packet of Throaties. Audio sync was not a concern.

    Being a stereo track, there was no use of the surrounds, or the subwoofer, for that matter.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

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